... Summer Magic Margate Girling Productions' Summer Magic is not only the most spectacular show it has produced in 16 years in Margate, but has graduated from the Queen's Hall to the prestigious main theatre in the Winter Gardens. As always, the main fabric of the show is the production numbers. Jackie Hart's choreog raphy and the nubile and hand some dancers in fabulous costumes come into their ...

... Molly Bloom: A Musical Dream c Setting the final, sexually explicit chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses to music may have its artistic merits but they are not found in Anna Zapparoli's adaptation of Molly Bloom's subconscious desires. Things do not start off too badly. Zapparoli sits, lies and writhes in various states of sexual arousal on top of Mario Borciani's piano, a bittersweet clan- ent, ...

... Just to recap, my name is not Dotun Adebayo Gorman ABOUT TOWN FRINGE VIEW BY DAVE GORMAN As I write this it is late on Sunday night. Earlier this evening I sat and watched BBC2's Edinburgh Review. If you haven't seen it, it involves the host, Mariella Frostrup, steering three guests through a review of festival goings-on. Basically, it does exactly what it says on the tin. On tonight's show ...

... Opening concert blows the mind Edinburgh International Festival: Usher Hall The Damnation of Faust There have been attempts aplenty to stage Berlioz's 'opera de concert en 4 actes', but his panoramic gloss on Goethe's masterpiece comes off best in the concert hall where it properly belongs. For the music's extraordinary tenderness and power, dazzlingly orchestrated, enables listeners to ...

... The Gothic Horrors Gilded Balloon Five black flats, several torches and radio-phones and five actors can go a long way in re-creating a fifties mystery thriller on the stage -- at least when directed by the acclaimed Andy Johnson, here collaborating with Ezra Hjalmarsson on Paul Sellar's script. Apparently Intended to parody Its own genre, the play takes advan tage of the thick policeman ...

... Scott Capurro Pleasance Offensiveness is the new rock'n'roll. Apparently. This surely must be music to the ears of Scott Capurro, his set comprising little more than a tirade of caustic comments aimed at minority groups. This would be fine if all the material was funny, or indeed offen sive. Despite a reputation of dan- gerousness, edginess and the guts to cross lines other comedians would shy ...

... I Kissed Dash Riprock!!! Assembly Rooms Writer, actress and stanckip comedienne Cyndi Freeman has created what must be one of the most energetic performances on the Fringe. Non-stop, it is no surprise the tale starts in Los Angeles, where Freeman's somewhat mad, love- desperate nameless actress is a groupie for celebrities with money and power. She meets hunky film star Dash Riprock over ...

... Count Arthur Strong and Terry Titter in You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet-Again! Gilded Balloon Here are two old boys coming up to Edinburgh again, trying to show young whipper-snappers how to tell a joke. But for all their class, you can never discount a grudge among the stars of yesteryear. It seems the hatchet was buried but then cracked over a skull, only for the post-war personality of pencil ...

... Taybok c Let's not talk about laughs per minute ratios. This show has neither wit nor hilarity, and is one of the most tedious hours you could spend on the Fringe. While the cast members liter ally drip with sweat, the script becomes ever worse, plummeting to uncharted depths of atrocity. Taybok is meant to be a hilar ious take-off of popular television. Instead it is a painfully unfunny ...

... Grease Cafe Royal Here's an interesting thing. If reduced-scale musicals are so popular on cruise ships, and in British and overseas holiday centres, could they be made to work as cabaret attractions? Live Business International, which took over cruising special ists Grosvenor Productions a few months ago, believes it is worth a try, and on the evidence of the short season of Grease at the ...

... Brendon Burns Pleasance Go see Brendon Burns, they say. He's just had a baby (well, not him exactly) but it hasn't changed him one bit. Yeah right. Male stand-up, first-time father. Seen it all before --the descent into IKEA gags and let's all make the world a safer place. But under the six-a-second expletive delivery, Bums has always ranted for a safer world, and if he's really a dad then ...

... Blanket coverage GUY MASTERSON Producer Guy Masterson says press coverage of the Fringe has changed tack in recent years-- and not always for the better It may not be entirely kosher to talk about another publication when writing for The Stage, but the issue in hand is, to my mind, perhaps the most important the festival has had to face for several years. The Scotsman reviews are hard to ...